Bioluminescence is a performance by R. Luke DuBois and Lesley Flanigan that explores the modality of human voice. The voice has a unique role in our musical culture, bridging the linguistic and the semiotic in a way that transcends instrumentality through a highly personal embodiment of musicianship. The recorded female voice, in particular, has been the subject of academic investigation following its role in aesthetics (Adorno), cinema and psychology (Silverman) and feminist theory (De Laurentis). In electroacoustic music, the voice has a privileged place in our canon, providing an boundless source of material for sonic exploration from the tape works of Berio, Dodge, and Lansky through the composer- performer repertoire of Joan LaBarbera and Pamela Z. DuBois and Flanigan investigate the possibilities of the improvised voice in tandem with electroacoustic processing.

The interplay between the two performers (one singing, one processing) engages the metaphor of the voice as impulse and the computer as filter, creating a dense palette of evocative sounds and images derived entirely from the voice of the singer. Using custom software written by DuBois, Flanigan’s voice is restructured live and in real time through spectral processing. While the two performers partake in a “dialogue” of sounds and words, the changing shape of the voice is traced visually through live video, leaving trails that evoke the memory of voice. These visuals act as a sonogram, allowing us to see what is heard in relation to how we are listening.